Tadaaki Narita

When I was ten years old, I went to the circus. There I saw the snake woman show
which was as follows: there was a woman with very long hair and pale skin, looking
perfectly normal but for the fact that she was in a cage. She started to move, at first
only her tongue, very slowly. A clown threw her a hen and with a sudden flash of a
movement, she caught the hen. She began to eat it without using her hands, her
mouth becoming stained with blood. This was terribly scary for a kid, but I was
fascinated by her. After the show, I followed her at a distance back to her shack where
I saw her talking on the telephone, looking sad. The contrast between her previous
appearance as a snake woman, and this daily reality, made a huge impression on me.
The image has stayed with me and remains central to my work in which I attempt to
explore the contrast between the spectacular surface of entertainment, and the reality
and pathos of its underlying structures.